Now that the bill seeking to restore death penalty has cleared the House of Representatives, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez says he believes that President Rodrigo Duterte will tackle other priority measures like naming the 25 people to be part of the Constitutional Commission who will do the job of drafting the amendments to the 1987 Constitution.
“After passing the death penalty bill, I am just waiting for the appointment of the commissioners [who will] rewrite the Constitution,” he said.
Earlier, Alvarez submitted a draft executive order to the Office of the President for the creation of a commission to help Congress in overhauling the Constitution.
He said Congress will convene into a Constituent Assembly that would study and scrutinize the Charter with an eye on a shift to federal system.
“When the draft Constitution is through, we can now convene into a Constituent Assembly for debate,” he said, referring to the proposal to shift the presidential-unitary form of government to a parliamentary-federal system through Con-Ass.
Duterte signed Executive Order No. 10 seeking to create a Con-Com to review and propose amendments to the Constitution.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte said it is now high time to intensify deliberations on Charter change to spur economic growth and ensure equal distribution of government resources.
“The shift to a federal system would spell inclusive growth, which means spreading from Imperial Manila to the countryside the benefits of being one of Asia’s fastest growing economies,” he said.
Villafuerte, vice chairperson of the House committees on local government and appropriations, said the 2017 national budget signed into law by the President in December last year would provide the government with an “auspicious start in realizing its inclusive growth agenda, with federalism providing the guarantee to sustain it.”